...beyond the reach of government oppression, women work to transform the many cultural contradictions of contemporary Iran into generosity and tolerance. The future of this country will have women at its heart and this is a fact.The "Iran" Facebook "public profile" page is worth following for the superior mix of material coming out of Tehran Bureau. I only wish more of their authors could post with a by-line instead of anonymously.
The ballots are perforated into two slips. First part includes the voters details including full name, fathers name, national ID number and so on. The officials check your ID and fill this part out before tearing off your half of the ballot (second part) for you to write down the name of your candidate and cast your vote. The first part is then kept by the official for future reference and in case of fraud investigation.
In this video the guy first goes through the second half of the ballots then fills out the personal details of the alleged voters in what appears to be the first half of the ballot as the other guy reads them out. I also heard the name of one of the candidates, Mohsen Rezai, 40 seconds into the clip. The context was unclear but it indicates that the clip in fact is related to this election.
This seems to have taken place in a relaxed environment which given the fairly quick announcement of the election results I assume took place before the election. The kid in the background towards the end of the video is talking about ice-cream!
And another piece of useful information is that a good majority of major voting stations are in mosques which happen to be where the Basij militia is based and they are pretty much in charge of everything there and needless to say they are fanatic supporters of Ahmadinejad. I was involved a few years ago as an independent monitor in a voting station that was a major mosque in Tehran and the process was laughable and shameful at the same time.
Fraud was widespread. I myself found a stack of blank ballots on the street on my way back home from that very voting station and returned it to the station. They wanted to annul that station but after some dispute and phone calls it was accepted. It pretty much highlights the fact that it is not the voters but the ones who count the votes who dictate the results. The process is highly inefficient and leaves plenty of room for both error and fraud.
6:14 update: Through Facebook we have received news that Mir Hossein
Mousavi, Mehdi Karroubi, and Gholamhossein Karbaschi are under house arrest.
This is likely 5 minutes and 30 seconds more reporting, by Lindsey Hilsum bless her soul, than you will see tonight on the average US tv station. (Hey, "digital" is not the only improvement we needed. How about "substantial" and "thorough" and "global"?)
The results of these elections have taken the world by surprise. Was there a failure here of the international media to guage Iran's affairs and sentiment?
Yes! That is what fascinates me most ever since coming to the US. When I wrote about students reading Lolita in Tehran, I was accused of saying Western literature is great. That is not what I was saying - I was saying people in Iran are taking these texts and analysing and seeing them in their own way - in a way the West doesn't.
The homogeneous picture of extreme belief where the majority of people believe in orthodox Islam which comes out of Iran is not true. Iran is a country of different ethnic minorities and different religions. Many of the Muslim minorities have been oppressed by the regime. This is not Islam - this is a state using Islam for power and we have to break this myth.
You've talked about and write about the importance of literature and culture in the fight for human rights and liberty in Iran and around the world. But is art, culture, literature ever going to be more powerful than religion? Is it enough to start a revolution?
If you look at it in the long term - yes it is. I never forget when Paul Ricoer, the philosopher, came to speak in Iran. He was an eighty-year-old but was treated like [the American rock star] Bon Jovi.
At one point the minister for Islamic Guidance said to him: "People like us [politicians] will vanish but you people will endure." That will always remain with me. We don't remember the king who ruled in the time of [14th century Persian poet] Hafiz, we remember Hafiz.
In Iranian eyes, one candidate, Democratic Senator Barack Obama, believes in dialogue and peaceful resolution of conflicts. While the other, Republican Senator John McCain, is belligerent and endorses the military option. The leaders in Tehran see Ahmadinejad better positioned to tackle a president McCain, while a total break from Ahmadinejad would afford Iran the best opportunity for rapprochement with a president Obama. It is that clear cut.
... If there is a president McCain, there will be a second term for Ahmadinejad. If there is a president Obama, the next Iranian president will be a moderate, soft-spoken and Western-appealing individual, one who is not weighed down by Ahmadinejad's baggage and who can start afresh with the US and achieve favorable results for Iran with an Obama administration. In that event, the leader would come from Qalibaf, Najafi, Aref and Nahavandian.
The Supreme Leader and leading contenders in Iran will be watching the US presidential results as never before.
